Eddie Griffin has a (baby) posse.
It's telling enough that I ditch the movie in favor of covering the presentation of a Vespa scooter to Planet Hollywood, as hosted by Mandy Moore's co-star in Chasing Liberty. Somebody has to be around to monitor these things. I'm still upset from that time when I followed Christina Applegate to the Planet Hollywood in Fort Lauderdale. It turned out that the framed memento that was allegedly Maurice Evans' Planet of the Apes make-up was, in fact, one of the many cheap masks made for the extras in Beneath the Planet of the Apes.
Corporations can't be allowed to get away with that sort of thing. However, I'll trust that the Vespa is from the actual production of Chasing Liberty, if only because Matthew Goode turns out to be a perfectly upstanding guy. And I'm not just saying that because he's so willing to talk about the ass of Mandy Moore's body double. As it turns out, that's been a regular topic of conversation for the young actor. The subject's even discussed in the issues of Popstar! that he'll later be signing for delighted fans.
It's obvious that the Brit's a little nervous to find himself in that position. He's equally direct about that, too: "This is going to sound really bad, because I know everybody wants to go, 'Yeah, I'm living a dream, I fucking love it, it's amazing'?but this is the stuff that I hate. I don't mean that in a bad way. I love the work, I love it all, but I'm a bit shy, really."
He's also very bright and self-effacing. Matthew certainly seems like a teen dream to me, if only because he visibly brightens at my suggestion that the night's ordeal will at least provide some young girls with a lasting thrill. "That's cool," he notes. "I quite like that. But for a minute, I thought you were going for a Michael Jackson moment there."
As it turns out, Michael Jackson moments are reserved for the next day's My Baby's Daddy press junket?courtesy of some mincing goofball from Gay Pandering Digest. To be fair, I've got my own agenda. I'm eager to goof on Eddie Griffin's film about three dads who discover the emotional fulfillment of parental duties?without, you know, bothering to be around during the infants' first six months.
But I ditch my outrage after watching Anthony Anderson endure the determined questioning of a particularly earnest douchebag. Granted, the comic actor baffles me with comments like, "White, black, Asian, yellow, brown, green?we all know or have a crackhead in our family." He still shouldn't have to endure a fawning lecture about how tv didn't offer a fatherly African-American role model until Bill Cosby. (Never mind that John Amos is actually in the damn film to deliver the big speech about personal responsibility.)
Later, this same reporter will explain to Anthony that he's too fat to ever be a leading man?but, naturally, the goofball means to add how that's what "the press" is saying. That's why I hate these roundtables. I always have to keep my mouth shut, because I can't stand the idea of a moron like this getting an interesting quote out of my own fabulously insightful questions.
Not that I actually have any to ask this morning. However, my snide comments would've been lighthearted in comparison.
Anderson's a genial guy, though. He seems pleased when he looks at his creepy interrogator and muses, "I'm going to tell Eddie about you." Sure enough, Griffin?despite what you'd think from his Undercover Brother DVD commentary?is pretty sharp. He strolls into the room, and easily dismantles the simp after the journo rushes to whine about Griffin's homophobic comedy routines. As you can guess, those routines actually translate into gags where Griffin goofs on his own homophobia. Eddie takes real delight in pointedly explaining that fact, too. All the other reporters have a good laugh. The weasel, however, misses the point. Some people are just too damn thenthitive.
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